Expresso My Love

I have a new website! I thought it might be wise to purchase the domain name www.theknittingsiren.com. It's under construction right now, though soon it will at least redirect to my etsy store. Like I don't have enough to do, I'm also finally getting some good info on getting some fiber/dairy goats. I've got the contact info for some local goat farmers as well as a book to begin educating myself. Woohoo!

Of course I've been sing the wonderful "Expresso My Love" song all day today (and yesterday and the day before). Here they are, all dried and ready to post on http://theknittingsiren.etsy.com.

Expresso My Love, bamboo (I had a very hard time getting a good picture of this but it is a rich chocolate brown with red tones)



I like a latte caffeine!


Java Jive


Depth Charge


Orange Mocha Frappachino! (picture 3 ridiculously good looking male models saying it, that's been going through my mind the last few days as well)


Jamaican Blue, my favorite

A special treat for you all

This is the song that inspired my most recent colorway line. It's a band from Mankato, Minnesota that totally rocks! As soon as the skeins are dry, I'll put up pictures. Just to taunt you, here are the names, "Expresso my Love," "Depth Charge," "Orange Mocha Frappachino!!!" "Latte Caffeine."

Expresso my Love, by The Divers.



Seriously, I don't know how they didn't make it huge. They are sooooo much fun to watch and have great songs.

Spinning Woes

Today is supposed to be day 2 of no knitting, note I said supposed. I have one last custom to finish up so I've been knitting until my hand starts to get sore, which isn't very long :-( Good news is I've been able to spin a lot and dye a lot. I had an epiphany last night while I was supposed to be sleeping. I should keep a notebook by my bed because what prevents me from sleeping is the thought that I won't remember my epiphany come morning. I did remember and am dyeing up a storm today. Will post pics tomorrow.

Here is the handspun. I'm quite proud of it. You can definitely see the improvement in my consistancy. I'm not sure if that makes me happy though because I really like the crazy look of my first couple batches. Now I'm going to have to practice being sucky at spinning :-) I do have another picture without the toes, but they are just so darned cute. I love baby toes.



As you can see, little mister loves to help Mommy take pictures!

New yarn!

My new bamboo and linen is dry. I love this stuff soooo much. The bamboo is unlike any I've seen yet. Most bamboos out there are kind of a chain/rope type yarn, this is more of a ribbon. I love it! I'm going to try and get a close up of it today.



And the linen... this is the nicest linen I have ever dyed. Very smooth. I'm saving some of this for myself. I'm thinking it'll make a gorgeous summer top.



I'm listing both of these today at my etsy yarn store http://theknittingsiren.etsy.com

You'll be seeing a lot more yarn coming up. I've been overworking my knitting muscles and they need a break. I keep waking up at night with a numb right hand. It's nice to still be able to enjoy my passion of knitting without giving myself carpal tunnel. I'm going to dust of my knitting machine as well (if the boys let me).

Work and Play

Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, when I should be taking time off, I got a new camera, new scale and a new line of yarn. I just don't think I can resist working (or is it really playing?).

Just a little plug for my new camera. I LOVE IT! Our last camera was a Nikon and we really liked it so we thought we would stick to what we know. This camera was $150 cheaper than our old one and is sooooooo much better. Unbelievably better. It has a "vibration stabilizer" that is a life saver. I can take pictures inside, no flash and without the tripod and they turn out perfect. This will make my life so much easier. The screen on it is amazing. It's the clearest screen I've ever seen. Nikon Cool Pix, S51c is just plain awesome.

Here is a bit of what I've been up to.

A bit of bamboo and wool, mostly wool.



And some spinning! I love the wonky look of it. The neat looking ones aren't handspun but are hand-plied. It's my lace weight bamboo plied on my wheel into a sport weight and a worsted weight. I like it.



And a couple customs that I just love.

These are hand-dyed by moi:


These are hand-dyed by Mosaic Moons, the trim dyed by moi. The picture is refusing to turn right-side up, so just turn your head.

Coming up for air!

Yes, I have been spinning my life away. It is just as addicting as I thought it would be. Now I won't have time to knit. I've been forcing myself to finish up the few orders I have by knitting for 30 minutes and letting myself spin for 5. Since I really want to spin, I've been burning through my orders (don't worry, quality is still on the top of my list).

I was hoping to tempt you with pictures of shimmering roving but now my camera won't take pictures at all and I can read the screen to see what's wrong with it. Big ARGH! I spun up 2 different wool rovings this week last week and I wanted to challenge myself with a new fiber. So, I headed to my wonderful LYS (Amy, you rock!) with bags of yarn to drop off and took bags of yarn/roving home. I got 8 oz of a beautiful soy silk roving. This might overtake my bamboo obsession. I love it! It's a little trickier to spin than wool, but not much. I wanted to get a before and after picture, but I don't know if I can keep myself from spinning it all up before I get my new camera.

Back to the grind.

Eeeeeee!

My mailman/UPS guy most think I'm rollin' in the dough. I received 5 packages today!!! Most of it was trades, yarn for a custom and my WHEEL!!! It's all set up and ready to go. I was able to play with it for a little bit while small one took a nap. I LOVE IT!

Another wonderful thing I got was my confold diapers from Georganne! They are the nicest diapers I have ever owned. Seriously these are great diapers.

And, I got some samples of some super yummy yarn. It's a bulky weight bamboo that is just gorgeous! I'm ordering some right now. I'm also going to be getting in some very nice linen. Summer yarn fun. Who says knitting is a winter sport?!

So, you may not hear from me for a while. I've got yarn to dye, customs to work up and fiber to spin!

Twitching

I'm so excited about getting my spinning wheel, I'm almost twitching! I keep dreaming of the beautiful yarns I'll be able to spin. Ooooh!

Once it finally comes, don't expect to see me for a few days.

Uh oh!

I had this great idea to go through some more boxes in the garage and came across my beading supplies. I'm in trouble. I love beading almost as much as knitting. I've been wanting to combine my 2 loves and make stitch markers and knitting needles.

Here is what I just made:







I'm trying to decide if I want to keep them or put them up in my etsy store. Maybe I'll just make more.

Shooting Blind

Since it's just the screen that's broken on my camera, I thought I would try the "shoot and pray" method. It was a huge pain. I'm going camera shopping this week. Here are the 2 pictures that turned out somewhat ok.





I got my stimulus check yesterday and bought my spinning wheel! I know a lot of people are going to think I'm crazy, but I opted for a Babe's PVC spinning wheel. I've heard good things about it, it's kid friendly (ie, hard for them to break), light weight and best of all, relatively cheap. Not very asthetic but it gets the job done. I can't wait!!!

Double Argh!!

My scale broke! Now not only can I not take pictures of my yarn, but I can't measure it out to dye it. Of course this all happens right after I get a huge shipment of yarn and new dye colors. I'm not having much luck lately.

I'm going to go sit and knit for a while.

Broken

Ugh! Hubbie broke my camera!!! I have a huge pile of yarn waiting to be photographed and no camera. I've been trying to think of what I want to get with my stimulus check and it looks like a new camera is going on the list. Maybe I should make hubbie buy one for me with his check :-) Then I can still get the spinning wheel I've been lusting after.

In the movies

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